


Free Kurt - Grandparents style

by Bablefisk



Category: Glee
Genre: France!, M/M, Not Blaine or Klaine Friendly, Not Rachel Friendly, free kurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:41:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25707589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bablefisk/pseuds/Bablefisk
Summary: Kurt's grandparents might not be able to be there in person, but they are certainly going to help in any way they can.
Relationships: slight Adam Crawford/Kurt hummel
Comments: 56
Kudos: 257
Collections: ToskaDre_Favs





	1. Closing in

**Author's Note:**

> This is for a Free Kurt week we are doing, check out the free Kurt tag for others.  
> I haven’t watched Glee in forever, and I have completely forgotten how the timeline went this winter/spring season, so sorry if I put things in the wrong order etc. Also, Italics is French. And beeing me, I couldn't just stop at one chapter, so there will be one more.

Kurt closed the door behind him and leaned back on it, letting out a sigh. The loft was surprisingly (and thankfully) quiet and he took in the muted sounds of the city through the windows. Winter in New York had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment; dirty and cold instead of fluffy snow and romantic light. But then again, New York hadn’t quite been what Kurt had dreamed of in several ways.

With a defeated slump to his shoulders, he started taking off outer layers and moved further into the apartment. There were signs everywhere of people living there, and Kurt couldn’t stop the annoyance that came. He had set up and decorated the loft to make it a place he could really feel home, to have a safe space in the big and new city. But then Rachel had become intolerable and Santana had shown up, and it had all changed.

He sat down on the couch, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. The reality was that nothing had turned out quite the way Kurt had thought. Or, more specifically, NYADA wasn’t quite what he had thought.

It had been two months by now. Two months of great teachers and hard work and great feedback on his work ethic and improvements. And yet, Kurt could feel himself starting to resent going to school. Musical theater had always been something he did because he thought it was fun and he loved performing. Turns out that having to train for hours every day and exhaust himself physically wasn’t something he actually enjoyed. It had been fun at first, to get to learn and sing and be amongst people who did the same. However, the competitive nature of the school, and the non-stop working was getting to Kurt. It didn’t help that he had to work at the Spotlight diner and Vogue next to it. In fact, even though Vogue was one of the happy moments of his days, he was starting to dislike even that. And through all of it, there was that horrible voice in his head calling him a failure.

A beep from his phone interrupted his downward spiral, and he picked it up from the couch next to him to see a reminder for his call with his grandparents. His grandparents, and particularly his grandmother, had been an incredible support for Kurt the last few years, even more so the last year in New York. They lived in the outskirts of Paris, and he tried his best to Skype with them once a week. With the time difference, it wasn’t always possible, but they did otherwise also talk over email.

He hadn’t seen them in person since his mother’s funeral. The relationship between his grandparents and his father had always been a little difficult, and Kurt still didn’t really know why. Kurt would have loved to see them more, but the one time he had asked his dad about it (he was about 12 at the time), he had just been told it was ‘grownup stuff’ and to not mention it again. Kurt was allowed to send letters, but not call, and that was that. A few years after, Kurt had contacted them himself, and they had started talking over phone and then Skype when that became a thing.

His grandmother had helped him through the disappointment of not getting into NYADA, through Blaine cheating, and through the sadness he when he had realized that his relationship with Adam was too much too soon. (That had sucked. He liked Adam, he really liked him, but the British boy was going back to England in a few months and Kurt had needed more time than they really had. Kurt was still part of the Apples, but Adam and him had parted as a couple, and with one last line from Adam that he “hoped the stars would align and they would meet again in a better situation for both of them.) Having them there, even if only over the phone, had been a great relief for him, and something he was very grateful for. So with a smile, he got up and moved towards his bedroom. 

**

A few days later, Kurt was having one of his rare days off. He had plans to practice some songs and go buy some bits and bobs he needed, but it was still early morning, and he hadn’t gotten any further than the couch. He was scrolling through Twitter when a message popped in from his grandmother. 

_“Hi darling, you grandfather and I really need to talk to you, do you have any free time this weekend?”_

Kurt could feel a stone sink in his stomach, fear of what could have happened spreading through his body. They had been fine when he talked to them a few days ago, what could possibly have happened? He sent a quick reply that he was available now, and found his laptop and connected the headphones, sitting down on his bed. As the call connected, he couldn’t help but put words to his worries.

_“What happened? Are you okay?”_

Both of them were there, and they seemed fine, though maybe slightly nervous.

 _“Oh, sorry for worrying you, petit fils, we are both fine. We just wanted to talk to you about something important.”_ The older man calmed down his grandson, his voice a tad higher than you would expect looking at him. Kurt had long wondered if that’s where he got his voice from, as he didn’t sound at all like his father.

 _“Oh, okay then, what’s going on?”_ Kurt’s fear turned into curiosity, and he looked at them both expectantly.

Ophélie looked at her grandson and took a few seconds to find her words. “ _Louis and I talked, after out conversation the other day. We don’t like to see you upset, and we wanted to help in some way.”_

Kurt cringed a little on the inside. The call a few days ago had turned into a complain fest on his part, where everything about his disappointment with New York had come into light.

She continued talking. _“We wanted to give you an alternative. We can see how tired and upset you are, and I know you said that school is supposed to be hard, but it isn’t meant to be like that. You aren’t meant to start hating the thing you loved, not like that. So, we wanted to give you an alternative. When the school year is over, you could come here. You could stay with us for the summer and figure out what you want. If you realize that you want to go back to school, then we can help you in that, but if you don’t, then you have the room to figure yourself out.”_

Kurt looked at them both in confusion. He felt like he was missing something here, like there was some information he didn’t know. Through the confusion, however, was a little excitement. He could go to Paris! A place he’d dreamed of visiting all his life.

_“I am a little confused. I would love to come and visit you in Paris, but if I’m going to have any hope of surviving next year I need to work here for the summer. And I can’t just up and leave my dad. Besides, what else would I do? I’ve been dreaming of this most my life.”_

The older couple looked at each other a little nervously, and Ophélie was again the one to speak.

_“What about designing? You’ve dreamed about that for years too. There are many good schools for that, and you would have the time to make a good application while you’re here._

Something in Kurt become unstuck and moved and it was as if his world shifted and changed. Why hadn’t he applied for fashion studies? He remembered fantasies of going to Parsons and FIT and drawing designs on his bedroom floor. Somewhere between going to Dalton and going back to McKinley, that dream had faded out. Maybe it was something about picturing him and Blaine performing together, or maybe it was just having people around him that was so focused on musical theatre, but somewhere the dream had been forgotten. Deep down in Kurt, a hope started springing up.

_“I…I haven’t thought about that dream in a long time, but you’re right, that has been a big dream of mine. I need to think about it, my world kinda shifted a little, but I will think about it. But that doesn’t remove the fact that money is an issue. I have tuition covered at NYADA by a grant but living in New York is expensive and I don’t see how I will get time to make anything to apply with.”_

Louis took his wife’s hand and took over the conversation. “ _There is something you don’t know about us, about your mother. This ties into the reason why your father told us to not come and visit you after Elisabeth died. He made us promise to not tell you, but you are an adult now and should make your own choices._

_“The thing is, out family is… well off. Both your grandmother and I have been lucky in our jobs and has earned a good amount of money. We also invested early on in big things, and by the time we had Elisabeth, we were comfortable with money. By now, we have more than we can really spend the rest of our own lifetime, at least the way we live._

_“After Elisabeth died, we tried to help Burt out. We knew he would have to raise you mostly on his own, and we wanted to make it easier for him and better for you. We lived half a world away, so we couldn’t help with the day-to-day, but we could help with money._

_“Burt refused our help. He got really mad, said some not so nice things and told us he didn’t want our help. We tried to reach out to him a few times, but we were cut off every time. When you needed money for Dalton, I called him, and I asked him to put his pride aside and let us help. That’s when he forbid us from telling you, saying you were his son and he would make the decisions in raising you._

_“We didn’t want to tell you all of this, because we didn’t want you to have to see this side of your father. We have an account we planned on giving you when you turned 21, but with everything that is happening, we decided we needed to tell you after all. “_

Kurt sat in shocked silence. It kept running through his head, all those things he couldn’t do growing up because they didn’t have the money. The guilt he felt every time he needed money for something more than usual, the guilt he still felt about Dalton. The reason he was working as hard as he was next to school. And all along, they could afford it. They had the money. His father was just too…something to accept it.

 _“Are you okay, petit fils?”_ His grandmothers worried voice brought him out of the shock, and he nodded.

_“Yes, I’m okay, I just need to … process everything you have told me. I need to think, and I need to figure out what I want.”_

Louis went on imploringly. _“That is what we want to give you, the chance to do that. We will buy the plane tickets, you will stay with us, you’ll have everything you need. And if you find that you enjoy living here, well, there are certainly enough fashion institutes in France as well. Your dual citizenship should solve any issues there. We can give you that, petit fils. And until then, we want to give you something else. This afternoon, a money transfer will go through that should keep you in living expenses for the rest of the semester. That way, you can quit that awful job, and only focus on what you enjoy. And no, we won’t take it back. This is money that will come to you one day anyway, you’re just getting it early.”_

**

The next few weeks were bizarre for Kurt. The money did come in (it was more than enough, in fact, Kurt could have figured out how to live on half of it, but he wasn’t complaining). He quit his job at the diner, and any downtown he had, he spent thinking about his options and drawing designs. A few days after his conversation with them, his grandmother had sent him an email with information about a bunch of French fashion studies, as well as what he would need to do to apply as someone who only has school records from USA. She ended the email with ‘ _because you deserve to be happy_ ’ and something about it settled into his heart. He deserved being happy. He deserved living his life in a way that made him happy. And so, he took some time to look at some institutes in the states as well, and before he quite knew it, he was preparing portfolios for several different schools, two in Paris and two in New York. He had a few weeks to get things together for the applications, and he knew very well that he might not get in, but it couldn’t hurt to apply.

Paris in the summer was looking more and more tempting, particularly since he didn’t have to work the full summer anymore, but he didn’t really want to leave his family and his friends for that long. And he felt it would be such a waste to fly down only for a week or two.

But then something happened that shifted Kurt right into his own lifepath. He was back in Lima; his dad had gotten good results back and Kurt felt like he could breathe a little again. Blaine had been weird all week, but Kurt was a bit too focused on his dad to really care. There had been an instance where Blaine had asked him right out if they could start dating again, and Kurt had said that he wanted them to move towards where they had been as friends, but that he didn’t trust Blaine as a boyfriend. The whole exchange had been weird, but somehow not weirder than his dad driving him to the airport and giving Kurt the strangest speech he’d heard in a while, though something about it filled him with dread. 

And then suddenly he was standing on the stairs of the school, Blaine in front of him with a ring, friends and strangers all around him, and it felt like he was being choked. Almost everyone he knew from Lima was here. People he had called friends, family, his dad! His dad who just basically told Kurt to say yes when Blaine asked. And Kurt had never felt more overlooked in his life. Anyone who knew him would know that this wasn’t something Kurt would have wanted, neither the huge display, nor from Blaine. Yet he felt trapped. There were people at all sides and saying no didn’t really seem to be an option. Which was the whole point, he realized. To force Kurt to say yes because he didn’t want to make a spectacle.

There was a weird pressure building up inside of Kurt. His friends, they all thought he should say yes, or they wouldn’t be here. Even his dad wanted him to say yes, didn’t think Kurt could do any better. And the voice in his head was urging him to say yes, because maybe this was all he was worth.

But then another voice rose inside him, and he could clearly hear his grandmother say, “ _You deserve to be happy.”_ And with a wrenching feeling, the pressure released and he saw a clear image of what his life would be like if he ever said yes to Blaine. And so he answered Blaine’s question.

“No.”


	2. Getting out

Kurt turned on his heel and quickly moved through the crowd. Everyone stood in shock around him, and just as he reached the doors outside, he could hear Blaine calling his name, and the deeper voice of his dad seemingly calming him down. Kurt was functioning a bit on autopilot. His primary goal was to get out, and by the time he reached the courtyard, he was alone. He could see his dad’s car standing there, and he realized all his stuff was in there. He couldn’t leave without his phone or wallet. But he didn’t want to hang around here either.

When he got to the car, he pulled at the door and let out a sigh of relief when it opened. His dad must have felt it was safe to leave like that at Dalton. With short and controlled movements, Kurt pulled out his suitcase and bag, closed the door, and started walking towards the exit. As he walked, he started calling for a taxi, asking it to meet him a little bit down the road by the bus stop. There was only a fifteen minutes car ride from the school to the airport in Columbus, and Kurt just wanted away. He had been in the cab for five minutes when his phone started blowing up, Blaine calling, his dad calling, Rachel calling. He declined all three as they came in, blocked Blaine’s number and sent a message to his dad.

‘I’m in a cab, halfway to the airport, I’ll call you when I get there.’

When he got there, Kurt still had a few hours before the plane left, and he found an empty corner to have what was probably going to be a really hard conversation. With a few deep breaths, he dialed his dad.

“Hi, dad.”

“Kurt! Are you okay?” The relief in his dad’s voice was like balm to Kurt’s soul.

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m at the airport. I just couldn’t…. dad, why would you set me up like that?” Kurt could feel the tears coming and tried to choke them back.

“Oh, buddy. I never meant it as a setup, I just… you’ve been so sad, and I just wanted you to be happy again. I thought being with Blaine would make you happy.”  
  
“Me being unhappy has nothing to do with Blaine, there’s lots of other stuff, I just…I won’t marry him. I’ll be miserable. I am miserable. We need to talk, to really talk, dad. I can’t do this over the phone.”

“I’m on my way to the airport, should be only a couple of minutes away. If nothing else, I wanted to at least give you a hug before you left.”

Kurt choked up again and did his best not to cry.

“I’ll meet you outside, I haven’t gone through security yet.”

Burt came walking over the parking space a few minutes later and pulled Kurt into a hug. They didn’t say anything for a long while, and Kurt knew that his tears was leaking into his dads’ shoulder. When the tears had dried up, they found a quiet corner in a café, and Kurt told his dad about how hard the last year had been. And then he told him about the contact he’d had with his grandparents.

“Ah, buddy, looking back I’ve been a stubborn old fool. I know you’ve never met my parents, your paternal grandparents, but if you had, you might have understood a little better. Money in my family was… a difficult subject. You didn’t talk about it, you didn’t discuss it, and if you didn’t have enough, that was your own fault, and nothing you should mention to others. Your grandparents offering me money was like they were saying I was a failure. That I wasn’t a good enough father to take care of you on my own. And listening to you talk about it doesn’t make me feel any better about it, but I understand where they were coming from a little better.

“And I think it’s a good idea, you going to Paris. If you really are as miserable as you sound, then you need to get away from that school and these people. And me, to a certain degree. I’m afraid I tend to be a bit stuck in my ways. I can only promise to try and change. And I can’t say I would be thrilled at you studying in a different country, but I would rather you be there and be happy, than here and miserable. I love you, kid, and you are the most important thing in my life. That will never change. “

On the plane, Kurt felt exhausted. The whole day seemed completely bizarre, and he was struggling to comprehend it all. The hour with his father had been good, though, and while he still didn’t agree with what Burt had done (in regard to his grandparents), Kurt could at least understand where it came from now. Kurt had some plans to make, but for now, he would use the flight to take a nap.

**

Kurt was going through his things in the loft, packing up everything. It was a week after school had let out, and currently, both Santana and Rachel were gone from the apartment. The last month with the three of them had been awkward, more so with Rachel than Santana, and Kurt had been counting down. The girls had shown up with a plane a few hours after Kurt, and Rachel had started on him the minute she saw him.

“I can’t believe you just turned him down and then left him like that! What kind of person does that?”

“Someone who doesn’t want to get married to the person asking. I said no, I couldn’t exactly hang around. We weren’t even dating, he’s still in high school, of course I said no.” Kurt’s calm voice was a jarring contrast to Rachel’s shriek.

After that, she had gone into long, hysteric tangents about how Kurt would never be able to win Blaine back now, and why did Kurt have to be so selfish and make it uncomfortable for all of them, and couldn’t he just have said yes. Santana didn’t seem to care one way or the other, and just greeted him before going on as usual. Rachel continued to rant for two days before she decided that ignoring him was better, and Kurt was honestly just relieved. She left for home the minute she could, and Kurt had a faint thought that it might be the last time he saw her for a good while.

Kurt’s own excitement for the summer vacation had been building every day, and as he was packing, he had started to hum. He had flown up to Washington after his last exam, to spend some time with his dad, Carol and Finn before leaving for France. He had flown back to New York to pack up his things in the apartment. He would bring a suitcase of his favorite clothes, his laptop, kindle and other equally important things. The rest, he would pack up and would be stored with a friend form the Apples, who happened to have a big storage space in the basement where she rented. They’d made a deal that she could use any of the furniture or kitchen stuff she wanted if he could keep it there, and Kurt knew she was particularly interested in the chair.

Within a few hours and some help from the Apples (sans Adam, he had gone back to England after they threw him a goodbye party at the end of the semester. There might have been some drunk kissing happening that Kurt is still trying not to think about), everything was packed up, and he handed over his key to the landlady. He still had to pay rent through the summer but using the rest of the money from his grandparents, it would cover it nicely. Besides, he would still get his part of the security deposit back. On the way to the airport, he emailed Santana and Rachel and told them that he wouldn’t re-sign the lease come fall, but that they were welcome to the apartment. He didn’t tell them he had stripped it of anything his and that they would come back to a slightly emptier apartment.

As he moved with the line into the airplane later that day, Kurt could feel something shift within him. His life would irrevocably change as he stepped on board the plane, and though it was a change Kurt was longing for, nerves started to settle in his stomach. This was it.

**

Back in New York, Santana was making her way towards the loft. She had read the email Kurt had sent, short and concise like he had been with them the last month, and she wanted to talk to him, figure out where he was. The loft had been his idea, after all.

Santana could understand Kurt’s attitude the last month. He had been forced into a corner with almost all his loved ones trying to pressure him into doing something he didn’t want to do. And when he had the guts and spine to tell them ‘fuck no’, they tore him down over it. ‘They’ meaning Rachel, Blaine and his posse. Santana herself hadn’t cared one way or the other, but it had been glorious being there and seeing the reactions and results. Daddy Hummel had stayed only for a few minutes before following his son, and it was obvious they had some serious conversations, because from what Santana had heard, Blaine had become persona non grata with the Hudmel clan.

Frankly, Rachel had become a pain to live with, and Santana herself had started to think it might be time to move out. Dani had vaguely mentioned that she wouldn’t exactly mind the two of them moving together, and Santana was liking the idea more and more. Maybe taking the opportunity now, when Kurt was already moving out, would be a good idea.

She pulled open the loft door, and as she stepped into the apartment, she stopped in shock. It looked like someone had come in and stolen half of their stuff. The couch and coffee table were still there, as well as one bookshelf, but the chair and all the old and antique bookshelf and dressers and other bits and bobs that had decorated their walls were gone. And gaping like a whole in the room was Kurt’s partition. It was completely stripped of anything, except the curtain itself.

Somewhere in the back of her brain, Santana registered that Kurt must have already moved out, and yet she couldn’t help but be impressed over how quickly and thoroughly it had happened. Just yesterday morning, everything had been here. And now it was not. There was no note, no more explanation. Just a half empty apartment.

A sudden inspiration struck Santana, and she took a short video of the apartment. She typed out a message to Dani and added the video.

“Hey, Kurt moved out. I think it’s time for me to move on as well. Wanna live together?”

With a last look at the apartment, she turned around again and left. She had only come to see if she could talk to Kurt, but that was obviously lost now. She would just have to use his email instead. The door locked behind her with a click, and she left, somehow knowing that everything had just changed.

**

Rachel was not a happy camper. She had read Kurt’s email a day or so after he had sent it (she was on a cruise with her parents, okay, she didn’t check her phone all the time), but the moment she had read it, she tried to call him. He couldn’t just move out! They had fixed up that apartment together and he couldn’t just leave her hanging like this! Santana and her could maybe manage to cover the rent between them, but Rachel had gotten used to having less rent, okay? She wanted that extra money to spend on other things. She even tried complaining to her dads, but they made it clear that legally, Kurt had done everything the right way, and there was really nothing she could do.

Then, a week later, she got a text from Santana. “I’m jumping while the jumping is good and I’m moving in with Dani in her apartment. It’s all yours, Berry.” 

What was she supposed to do now? Get roommates? Move back into the dorms? No, she just couldn’t move back there, she had hated it. Then an idea struck her; Blaine was moving to New York, maybe he’d want to move in? Living with him would probably be much better than living with Kurt, who was so nitpicky about everything. And, of course, she had her callback for Funny girl soon, and when she got the part, she would earn plenty to be able to get her own apartment at some point, even if living with Blaine didn’t work out.

With renewed energy, she packed the last of her suitcase to take with her to New York, and then sent a text to Blaine, inviting him to live with her. This would be so much fun! (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t. Living with Blaine would in fact turn out to be a bit of a nightmare. Also, she didn’t get Fanny.)

**

Paris was amazing. When he first arrived, Kurt couldn’t help but wear Rose-colored glassed, but even weeks after he had arrived and he had settled more in, there was something about the city, about the country really, that he loved. He felt weirdly at home in a place he had never been.

Meeting his grandparents again had been great, and living with them was going fine, though they had certainly had their arguments. One of those arguments had come when Kurt had received his first acceptance letter. He was still thinking about what he wanted to do going forward, but he knew he wanted to go to a school or have a job that would take him the direction he wanted to go.

They, on the other hand, wanted him to just take a free year and stay with them and experience Paris. They couldn’t understand why Kurt wouldn’t want that, but to him it would just feel too much like standing still, and that wasn’t something he was interested in doing. Besides, knowing that they had put aside enough money for him to pay for three degrees, he didn’t have to worry about money anymore. That meant he didn’t actually have to work next to school, no matter where he ended up. It would give him the freedom they so desperately wanted to give him through a free year, but on his premise.

By the time Kurt made his decision, he had three acceptance letters, and one rejection. At the end of the summer, Burt, Carol and Finn all came to Paris, after a long and hard discussion between Kurt, Burt , Ophélie and Louis, and finding some sort or understanding and family connection again. Two days before school was about to start, the Hudmels left for the States again, with Kurt staying behind in his new dorm room at ESMOD.*

**

It was the summer two years after Kurt had moved to France, and he was walking hand in hand with his boyfriend of three months. They had met at a completely random meet-again-cute, where Kurt had been with a few friends in London for the weekend and happened to crash into Adam outside the restaurant they were both going to. Turns out, Adam was also in the show they were going to, and the two boys connected again. Adam was just as bright and lovely as the first time Kurt had met him, but Kurt’s own maturity and happiness had made them fall together easily and made staying together across country lines perfectly doable. Besides, it was a fairly quick train ride between them, and they managed to make it work.

Currently, they were on their way to visit Kurt’s grandparents. They still lived in the same house, and Kurt took the trip out about once a month to visit them during the school year. In a week, they were all going to Ohio to visit, and Kurt was looking forward to Adam meeting the rest of his family. He looked up at the blond man and smiled. He was so incredibly happy, and so incredibly relived that he had said no that day back then. He couldn’t imagine life being any better than it was right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, a couple of big notes here: 
> 
> First, I was back and forth on how to treat the relationship between Kurt and Burt. I feel that glee went completely off rails in this episode in regard to many things, but the Hummel father-son relationship was one of them. In the end, I chose to stay with canon from before this, where I feel like Burt was a good, if somewhat flawed, dad. As someone who also has a complicated relationship with her mother, the whole idea of understanding why my mother acted the way she did really helped me make a functioning relationship to her as an adult. Knowing why doesn't make it okay, but at least you understand. And that's what I was going for here. And in my headcanon of this story, Burt did get better
> 
> Second, I tried to write the meeting between Kurt and his grandparents, but I just couldn't. This is the story that wanted out, so this is what you got. I kinda enjoyed the thought of Racchel and Santana's reactions, so that suddenly popped in there as well.  
> *Esmod is a fashion school in Paris. I was once again going to write much more around Kurt's choices and schools and everything, but it just didn't want to be written.  
> And yes, Adam at the end was a plan from the start, and frankly the reason I wanted to write the second chapter, which is slightly hilarious, considering how little I actually ended up writing about it. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed anyways.


	3. The reality of the situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel and Blaine getting a reality check

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: A couple of you asked for this, and I kinda wanted to write it, so I added another. This is just a lot of lol Rachel and lol Blaine, so if you don’t like that, you can just skip this one. It’s slightly crackish, but I've tried to stay within the lines of how I think it could have played out.

Rachel was full of energy as she bounded up the stairs to the loft, dreaming about the future. Getting Fanny, living with Blaine and making sweet music with her actual best gay. She could help guide Blaine at NYADA, and she would be seen as the older, wiser one. She’d already lived in New York for a year, after all. She was worldly now. And everyone would see it. And Fanny, that was going to be amazing! She couldn’t even fathom why they needed to have a callback and couldn’t just give it to her on the spot, but she figured they probably had to make it seem like they were doing their job and making it ‘fair play’.

As she unlocked and walked into the loft, her mood plummeted. It looked empty and strange and it took her a few moments to realize why. It was as if it was that game where she had to remember what was missing after the towel had been removed. She saw the empty spaces, but her brain just couldn’t quite connect what used to be there.

Then it hit her. The chair. The bookcase. The dresser. The cute little stuff Kurt had found at the marked. And Kurt’s partition. Completely empty. Actually, no, the pallets were still there, but everything else was… gone.

Kurt. The anger welled inside her. How dare he just take _their_ furniture? The furniture that made this place so much a home, that they had worked so hard on making a good place to live? Now it just looked like a half empty apartment, too much space and not enough to fill it with. With a burst of anger, she pulled out her phone and tried to call Kurt. When it went to voicemail, she sent him a text, and just to be thorough, she sent him an email as well. If he wanted to leave their home, then that was his choice, but to take their furniture, to ruin it like this, that was not okay. (She would realize a little later that half the cupboards where empty as well, and she fumed some more, sending off another angry text.)

It took a couple of hours of her stamping around the apartment, fuming in her righteous anger before she got any reply, and it was over email. Reading it, her anger only grew, and she tried calling her dads to help her sue Kurt, but they had to once again make it clear that he was in the right. It took her days to calm down, and it was only because she had to prepare for Fanny that it didn’t take any longer.

“Rachel

The things I took were furniture and kitchenware that was all mine. I paid for and restored the furniture, and the kitchenware came with me from Ohio. You had no rights to any of it, and the only reason I didn’t take the table as well is because it was so cheap. Get over yourself, you’re not getting any of it back.

Also, I’ve blocked your number, please don’t contact me again.

Kurt*

**

Rachel stood gaping in the theatre. She had come this morning for the callback, and they were saying yes or no on the spot to the people they would be interested in taking forward. It had surprised Rachel, as she thought this would be the last round, but she had gathered herself together and had come with a great performance. Only to be cut. She had stared at them in shock, not able to comprehend what had just happened.

“Wh-what do you mean? I’ve…I’ve always wanted to do this part; I am perfect for this part! How can you cut me?”

She didn’t realize she was starting to sound hysterical, or the fact that everyone else who was there to audition was staring at her.

“We’re not interested in taking you further. You simply aren’t what we’re looking for. We were clear enough at the start of the day, you will get notes later. Now, I’m going to ask you again to please leave the stage, or we will have security escort you out.

“But, but…”

The director sent a look to an assistant, who presumably went to fetch a guard, and Rachel found her wits long enough to get her things and get off the stage. She was moving on autopilot, and her whole body was numb. This was her dream, the whole reason for going to NYADA, and she didn’t get it. What was the point of all this school stuff if it didn’t get here where she wanted to be? The last couple of months at school had been really bad for her, because she was so focused on Funny girl, she didn’t put in as much work as the teachers wanted. She never did quite understand why she would need to put in any more work, she had been training her whole life for this, they couldn’t teach her anything new. But all the teachers had been miffed with her, not just Cassandra, and at the end of the schoolyear, Madam Tibideaux had had a meeting with Rachel. It hadn’t gone well, she had been told to either start actually investing the time in school and work on her classes, or she could just not come back next year. Rachel hadn’t really listened, she had Fanny on her mind, and just knew that she wouldn’t come back to school anyways come the fall.

But now, she was in a place where she hadn’t expected. No Funny girl. No Fanny. Halfway thrown out of school already. Cassandra July had flunked her dance class, meaning she would either have to take an exam during the summer, or repeat the course all over again next year, which meant another year of insults and judgement, which Rachel didn’t think she could take. So, the exam it was. If she wanted to stay at NYADA that was.

**

She wanted to stay at NYADA. After a few days of sulking, a long talk with her fathers, who both reassured her that the casting people must be idiots, she had found some sort of determination again. She remembered the praise and adoration she got her first semester, and she wanted more of that (she chose to use her selective memory and not remember losing to Kurt during Midnight madness. It wouldn’t do her any good to linger on the bad stuff). She told everyone and their mothers than she had withdrawn from the role of fanny because the production didn’t seem serious enough. She signed up for the dance exam at the end of the summer, which would thankfully not be held by Cassandra. They even had a couple of sessions they could join before to go through what they needed to know for the exam itself, and practice, which Rachel gladly signed up for.

Slowly, she started to re-build her excitement. She had talked to Blaine, and his parents had given him some money for furniture, so when he came, they could fill in the wholes in the apartment. Like her parents, Blaine’s would also be paying his rent, so it would be really nice, knowing that none of the people she lived with had to stress to get the rent in (never mind that neither Kurt nor Santana had ever been late on rent).

This was going to be great!

**

Rachel stood in front of the three dance teachers, sweaty and tired. The exam had been rigorous, and she was in worse shape than she remembered, but she thought she did pretty okay. Well enough to move on to the next level, certainly.

They were all dismissed and given half an hour to shower before they would call in one and one to give them notes on what they had done. With her name, Rachel was lucky and didn’t have to wait long.

“Ms. Berry take a seat please. How do you feel like you did?”

“Pretty good, I think. I haven’t been able to keep a workout schedule through the summer, so my stamina isn’t quite where it was at the end of the school year, but other than that, I think I did well.”

Rachel used all of her charm to the best of her abilities, knowing the ‘humble but confident’ was a good way to play it in front of teachers.

The three examiners looked at each other and communicated in some way, before the only male of the three spoke up.

“We agree with you on the stamina, certainly. It’s the rest we don’t quite agree with. Frankly, we don’t understand what you are doing here. It doesn’t look like you even took the intro class. Your turns were sloppy, you were off beat, you never stretched the whole way out. You are a fairly small person; you need to use every inch of body that you have. Honestly, it looked a little bit like a child doing a recital had been mixed in with professional dancers. “

Rachel tried not to burst into tears as she took a few breaths. It seemed like every dance teacher at NYADA had it out for her, and she didn’t understand why. But maybe… She let some of the tear out and put on a sad expression.

“It’s Ms. July, she hates me, and she’s refused to teach me anything. I’ve tried, I promise, but all she does is bully me.” She sniffed a little and made the expression on her face even more pathetic, mentally crossing her fingers and hoping she could get her hated teacher written up.

“Considering I know Cassandra July and her teaching style, and the fact that she teaches all the intro students who will move into my class, I know you are lying. The only students she really has it out for are those that don’t do the work, and I can see that you don’t. You’ve failed this exam, and frankly, I don’t want to let you into Ms. Julys class with that attitude. We will let you know by the start of the semester how we are going to be dealing with this, but I honestly doubt I will ever see you in my class.”

**

Blaine looked up at NYADA with a smile on his face. This was his new home. This is where he was going to become a star. Where everyone would know who he was and wanted to know him and be his friend. After his last year at high school, which had been a real downer, Blaine was ready to have a great year again. He had moved in with Rachel, which was going splendid (it had been two whole days!), and he was sleeping where Kurt had slept a full year. He had put his bed in the exact same position that Rachel said Kurt’s had been in, and he imagined Kurt’s soft skin as he lay in bed at night.

It had taken Blaine the full summer (and three different boys) to really get over what Kurt had done to him when he had just left like that. After everything Blaine had been through, Kurt had put him through the worst humiliation, of all those people being there, and saying no. Who did that sort of thing? Someone very selfish, is who. And that is what Blaine had realized during the summer, that Kurt had just become too used to living on his own and not having to care about anyone else, so he had become selfish and wasn’t considering Blaine’s feelings at all. But Blaine was pretty sure that once he was back in Kurt’s life, with him at NYADA, he could train that selfishness out of the boy again. He knew, of course, that Kurt had moved out, and they hadn’t managed to figure out where he had moved to, but Blaine was sure to meet him at NYADA and that being around each other all the time would wear Kurt down until he came and asked Blaine for forgiveness for being so selfish. And Blaine would be good and take Kurt back, because that was the kind of man Blaine was.

He walked into the school with a big smile and high hopes for the future.

**

He walked out of NYADA a week later, his body beat up and tired. The school was nothing like he had thought it was. Instead of being praised and recognized as a great talent the moment he started to sing, his teachers had gone straight into criticizing him. When he had tried to explain himself and tell them why he was doing it right, his teacher had given him a look and said that “this is a school, you are here to learn. If you aren’t interested in that, you can leave.” Blaine had been tempted to, because he had also been a little insulted that he wasn’t in a class with Madam Tibideaux. He knew she had classes, because Kurt had been in her group last year, and Rachel the semester before him. (Rachel had bitched about how Kurt had taken her rightful place in the Madams group, but Kurt wasn’t there, and still Rachel wasn’t back in the class).

His dance teacher was even worse. When he had asked that the barre be moved down so he would be comfortable, she said that “this isn’t a class for midgets. Get bendier or get out.” She reminded him heavily of Coach Sylvester, and he knew better than to antagonize people like that, so he tried his best to stay in the background after that, but she still called him out.

And the worst part of all was that he hadn’t seen Kurt anywhere. When he had finally asked Rachel about it, she said she hadn’t seen him either, and they were supposed to share some classes. She had finally managed to talk with someone in Kurt’s old choir group, and they had told her that Kurt transferred to a different school but refused to tell her which! Meaning that Blaine had no way of contacting him or knowing where he was! How was he going to win him back now?

**

Living with Blaine was nothing like Rachel would have thought. Instead of waking up and singing duets in the kitchen, she woke up to heavy snoring and a dirty apartment. Turns out, Blaine, yeah, he didn’t like to clean. Anything than himself that was, as he did spend forever in the shower. And he complained, all the time, about everything. As if Rachel didn’t have her own issues. And if she didn’t pay attention to him, he would sulk and whine and she was just so done with it. After a week! How was she supposed to live like this for another year? She missed Kurt.

**

Rachel left the meeting with Madam Tibideaux heavy in thought. How had it all gone so wrong so fast? A year ago, she was the favored student, but now, all her teachers seemed to despise her. The Madam had as usual been very direct.

“Ms. Berry, we have a problem with you. You had a great foundation, some good to build on, but it seems you are no longer interested in learning from this institution. We had this conversation a few months ago, and I gave you the opportunity to take a few classes for summer school and catch up a little, but I see you didn’t do that. As far as I can tell, we can’t actually give you what you are after, so tell me why are you still here?”

Rachel had looked at her in shock and confusion. She had a vague recollection of the summer school, but she hadn’t really even considered it because of Funny girl.

“Because everyone knows that with NYADA on your resume, getting into musical theatre is much easier. And I want to do musical theatre.”

“But do you know why it’s easier to get a job when you went to NYADA? Because they expect you to have the skills we teach. Not because you got in and that suddenly makes you good enough already. First year of NYADA is going to get you nowhere in our business, and flunked classes at the end of your degree will only pull you down.

“Besides, I don’t think you actually want to do musical theatre in a professional setting. I think you want the adulation and praise that comes with it, but that you don’t want to do the work. And that’s going to get you nowhere.

“Now, onto the more practical details. You will not be having sessions with me this semester, as I don’t see why I should waste my time teaching you when you clearly aren’t interested in learning anything. Neither will you be joining Ms. Julys dancing class. We have a young man who runs dance classes in the afternoons for a selected group of people who don’t seem to grow the way we want with Ms. July, and you will be joining them.

“And be aware Ms. Berry. I don’t often flunk people out of the school entirely, but unless you shape up, you won’t be here come January.”

**

There where whispers in the halls of NYADA. Like any school, rumors where abound, and though not all of them right, these ones certainly seemed to fit.

_“Why are we they two more in the class behind us, do you know?”_

_“I heard that Anderson’s dad bought him a place through a Senator or something, and they held it over Tibideaux. She refused to reject someone she would have otherwise accepted, so to make it even and pair up, she decided to accept one extra instead.”_

_“Well, if I know her right, she will flunk him out the moment she can.”_

_“Did you hear? Rachel Berry was bumped down to failout dance class. She with the ‘long background in dance’ couldn’t handle Ms. July.”_

_“Hey, do you know what happened to Kurt?”_

_“Oh yeah, he wasn’t really happy, so he transferred to another school. I still talk to him; he’s doing really good!”_

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to say that I do honestly believe Kurt would be great at NYADA, but for this story I needed him to not like it, so he’ll go another way.


End file.
